A brief history of efforts toward universal health coverage in the United States would not be brief at all. It would start nearly 100 years ago, in the progressive movement of the early 1900s. And it would continue, in fits and starts, with moments that seemed tantalizingly close to completion, throughout the entire 20th century and into the new millennium.

Until the law known as Obamacare was signed by the president in 2010. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, to use the health law’s proper name, turns 2 today.

We wish it a happy birthday. And hope it sees many, many more.

Before all the fighting heats up, before opponents have their literal day in court, we’d like to pause to look back, to remember the reasons why progressives battled so long and so hard.

The United States, the richest and most powerful nation that the world has ever known, had long stood alone among industrialized nations in failing to provide some kind of health insurance for all its citizens. In recent times, nearly one in every six people across the land was uninsured, putting them one injury, one serious illness, away from catastrophe.

President Obama and his Democratic allies in Congress saw an opportunity and seized it. They didn’t do so easily. Nor did they do so without risking great political peril.

It’s long been said, at least by those in a certain vocal circle, that our nation’s health care system is the envy of the world. Well, perhaps by some measures it is, but by many important ones, it has been lagging badly. Infant mortality. Life expectancy. Access to coverage. Cost. The list could go on and on. It could go on as long as the fight over how to provide near universal coverage.